Skin of Evil (episode)
The crew encounters an entity of pure evil, costing them the life of a dear comrade. Summary A ship that Deanna Troi is attending a conference on crashes into a mysterious planet. The Enterprise, unable to beam Deanna back for an unknown reason, sends an away team consisting of Dr. Beverly Crusher, William Riker, Geordi La Forge, Data, and Tasha Yar to investigate and to try to bring back Deanna. The away team discovers an odd liquid-like lifeform that, trying to entertain itself, strikes down Yar. She is beamed directly to sickbay in a desparate attempt to save her, but she dies. They beam back down to the planet and try to negotiate with the evil skin. The thing takes Riker and pulls him into the pool of itself. Deanna learns while talking to the thing that its name is Armus, and she also learns that it was abandoned by someone. When it thinks of its desertion, it becomes very angry with an unfocused anger. Captain Jean-Luc Picard beams down to the planet and tells the others to beam back up. Armus allows Picard to go into the crashed ship to see Deanna, and Picard tells her that he has a plan. Armus takes Picard out of the ship and talks to him some more. Picard deliberately makes Armus angry by speaking to it--as Deanna said to do--about its desertion. The unfocused anger that Armus feels allows Worf and Wesley Crusher to beam Troi, Riker, and Picard out and onto the ship. After out of harm's way, the crew of the Enterprise mourn the loss of Natasha Yar, and watch a hologram that she had made to be watched after her death. Memorable Quotes "Hailing frequencies closed, sir." : - Tasha Yar, her last words from her hologram at her funeral "I find my thoughts are not for Tasha, but for myself. I keep thinking, how empty it will be without her presence. Did I miss the point?" "No...no, you didn't, Data. You got it." : - Jean-Luc Picard and Data Background Information *This episode marks the death of Tasha Yar. *The original title was "The Shroud" and during the holodeck scene, Commander Riker was supposed to show "signs of the shroud" on his face. *The stardate for this episode is inconsistent with the fact that Tasha Yar died. This episode's stardate is 41601.3, but in TNG: "The Big Goodbye", stardate 41997.7, she is alive and well. *When Riker was sucked into Armus, Jonathan Frakes was in fact submerged in a pool of Metamucil and printer's ink. During a break in filming while Frakes was lying on the beach, covered in the sludge, LeVar Burton approached him and said "Frakes, I never would have done that!" *Denise Crosby has stated that had there been more scenes like the one at the beginning of the episode between her and Worf then she may have considered staying on the show. *After Armus pulls Commander Riker into itself, the rest of the away team run up to it, and Geordi's phaser falls from its holster into the slick. *When Armus seizes control of Data's arm, he grabs a phaser, however, Armus had previously sucked Data's phaser and tricorder away from him when he says "perhaps your instruments are useless?" Links and References Guest Stars * Mart McChesney as Armus Co-Stars * Ron Gans as Voice of Armus * Walker Boone as Leland T. Lynch *Brad Zerbst as Nurse * Raymond Forchion as Ben Prieto References 2364; betting pool; dilithium; dilithium assembly; direct reticular stimulation; kickboxing; Minnerly; Mishiama wristlock; neural stimulator; norep; shuttlecraft 13; Swenson; Vagra II; Vagra system; Natasha Yar; z-particle; Zed Lapis sector Category:TNG episodes de:Die schwarze Seele es:Skin of Evil nl:Skin of Evil